


Invariant

by Batwynn



Category: Frostiron - Fandom, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, BAMF Avengers, Bonding, Confused Loki, F/M, FrostIron - Freeform, Hurt Loki, Hurt Tony, IronFrost - Freeform, M/M, Pissed Loki, Pissed everyone, Soul Bond, Soulmates, Tony-centric, black and white
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-05
Updated: 2015-08-04
Packaged: 2018-03-21 08:09:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3684681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Batwynn/pseuds/Batwynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world is black and white, that’s just how it is. Until you meet your soul-mate, and then it’s apparently like a ka-boom and a wa-zow!</p><p>Tony’s never had a soul-mate, and he doesn’t really mind that Pepper’s never made him see a whole new world. Well, he doesn’t mind until he meets a certain god who kind of sort of blows his world out of the damn water.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** Please do not share, repost, translate, or create printed copies of this fic without my express permission.

They say it’s like a bomb going off inside your mind and everything you thought you knew is shit because you know what? Love makes a beauty out of the world.

 

At least that’s what they say. 

 

For Tony Stark, the world is cold. There’s a lot to words the Unbound use for it, but he likes to use ‘cold’ because that’s the general feeling he’s had since he was a kid. Cold father, cold shoulder, cold metal.

 

It doesn’t help that most people his age have found their bond-mate, a whole new world of technicolor, and run off into the sunset singing about reds and blues and tra-la-la shut up no one wants to know what the color of a damn tree is. (apparently, it’s worthy of songs.)

Not that he cares, anyway, because he’s okay with cold. Cold was good. Cold helped him in the blinding white desert when he slaughtered his way out of captivity. Cold helped him stay focused in the blackness of the cave, and cold helped him move onward and upward to really becoming Ironman and not curling up in his basement and bleeding out from oh-so-many stabs to the back. As it is, he spends a lot of time down there anyway, ignoring the reports on the Ironman’s choice of colors (“why so bland?”) and trying to get JARVIS to speak in different voices. 

 

“Come on buddy, give me femme fatale.”

 

“Sir, miss Potts has called ten times in the past hour and several of her voice messages have been about discontent from the New York power grid. Might I suggest you answer her next call?”

 

“You think she’ll try again? I mean, it’s been ten times, she must know i’m busy.”

 

JARVIS’s voice drops to a husky, wrestler mania sort of tone, “She is well aware that you are currently ‘playing’.”

 

Tony turns away from his screens to stare at nothing in hopes of clearing his suffering mind. “Okay, dial that voice back forever because I think you just scarred me for life, and i’m not _playing_ , i’m being imaginative.”

 

“Of course, sir,” the AI continues, voice so low it’s like angry, angry chocolate. “As soon as you return her call.”

 

“Jesus christ, I need to get away from you,” Tony snaps, pushing himself towards the door on his chair until he bumps into the glass. “I’m going out, and yes, Bubba Gump, i’ll call her on the road. But if you speak to me in that voice again, i’m permanently changing you into JAPITA.”

 

“How clever, sir.”

 

“Thank- _you_ ,” Tony chimes as he heads up stairs to find his keys. 

 

* * *

 

 

For the most part, the world’s the same as it’s always been. When the first signs of what they _thought_ was some kind of contagious infection causing colorblindness showed up, people panicked. Of course, when they started to actually study the thing like rational adults, they found out that it was something they had no idea how to cure because, well, it wasn’t a disease. (That’s what _they_ say, anyway.) After that, a few things had to change because more than half the population in the world couldn’t see color anymore and the stray few who could happened to all be nobody important. Which figures, seeing as most important people like politicians don’t merry for whimsical things like love. That’s when they came up with new terms for it, like Unbound for the losers without their soul mates and the Bound—so clever, these people—for those who somehow fished their precious out of the damn ocean. After they had names for it, they started changing things like traffic lights and a bunch of color-coded stuff at hospitals and there was a huge boom in the print industry when they cut back on the cost of color ink. Basically, it was a pretty major overhaul on the system that had been in place for decades, and people didn’t like it, but it works and there you are, deal with it. 

 

 

Tony was born into this monochromatic world, never seeing a spot of this elusive color for all 40-something of his years on this earth. He doesn’t care, you can’t miss what you’ve never had. Unless everyone else has it and leaves you in the black-and-white dust. 

 

 

“Pepper,” he calls out to the dashboard, keeping his hands free to drive at what Pepper calls ‘disgusting speeds’. “What’s the deal? I thought we scheduled this for next week and did you get the flowers I sent? I tried to make sure they picked colors that has some contrast. That last bouquet was like looking like a bunch of white blobs.”

 

“Tony, you said next week last week and I did get the flowers, they smell lovely.”

 

“But the tones, Pep, tell me about the tones.”

 

Theres a pause where he assumes she checks them over again. 

 

“They’re really nice, Tony,” and he knows she’s lying. He always knew. Almost always. 

 

“Great,” he lies right back. “Now about the reactor—“

 

“You said you would do it this week, Tony. Everything else is done and the lower offices are already being prepped for the staff who, as I told you, are going to be here in two days.”

 

Tony bites back a sigh he knows she would hear and hate, and slows down enough to do a u-turn in the middle of the highway. 

 

“Alright, fine. You win. I’m heading back to the house to suit up.”

 

Another pause. 

 

“You’re… flying over?”

 

“It’s faster, Pep, you know that.”

 

“But Tony, there’s a lot going on with the Air Force lately and Rhodey made it pretty clear that the Ironman should lay low for a while.”

 

“Rhodey and the Air Force can bite my shiny metal ass. I’m flying over, i’ll be there in like, an hour,” he replies, ignoring her huff of almost laughter. 

 

“ _Fine_ ,” she concedes. “I’ll be in the home-base going over the last few orders for the main lobby. See you soon.”

 

“Hugs and kisses. Lots of l—okay, you’re already gone.” 

 

He sighs, tapping the screen to turn it off. 

 

“See you soon…”

 

* * *

 

 

So, the whole thing about soul-mates was that it kind of fucked up relationships. Like, all kinds of relationships. Friends, family, lovers, fuck-buddies, marriages. People tried to date not-soul mates—oh yes, they _tried_ —but there was only so long they could go before it crashed and burned. Because everyone wanted a soul-mate, they wanted that fateful connection or whatever. It was supposed to mean something and, well, if you didn’t see colors, apparently everyone else was meaningless. 

 

Pepper wasn’t meaningless. Sure, she wasn’t his soul-mate, that was a given, but she had been his better half for as long as he could remember and sometimes, just sometimes, he thought he saw a flash of color in her eyes. That was probably a delusion, but it was a nice one. 

 

_She isn’t meaningless:_ he tells himself every time they argue. Every time he hears Happy talk about the color of Tony’s cars because _he’s_ got a soul-mate. (Just because he can’t see them doesn’t mean he’s going to settle for anything bland. The suit was something different, he was waiting to color his suit.) Every time he’s at a party and someone suddenly gasps, hand held to their heart, eyes fixed on the person who just colored their world and it’s a beautiful moment and everyone claps. Except Tony. 

 

Pepper’s special, obviously, but she’s not his soul-mate, either. 

 

* * *

 

 

Tony cuts them off from the power grid and Pepper lights up the tower like Christmas, with more _him_. It’s cool, all that bright white on black, like his reactor shining through the chest plate of his suit. Tony’s always liked the way it looked, it was exciting, something so high-contrast in this otherwise flat, gray world. 

He has trouble celebrating with her after, because something’s missing between them and he has a feeling it’s been gone from the first day she went ahead of him to NYC to ‘set things up’. Their jokes are stilted, and he senses some real anger from her about the ownership thing. (12% was funny, really.) Coulson  saves the day interrupts them with some important thing to do with the Avengers Initiative he was considered but not considered for. The agent has found his soul-mate, go figure, and hardly has any time for her, from what he hears from Pepper. 

 

Anyway, bigger fish to fry.

 

“JARVIS, link me up with SHEILD, we need to be in sync. The second they hear something, I want to hear it a millisecond later.”

 

“We are live, sir.”

 

“Good, now let me just… learn some thermonuclear astrophysics.”

 

* * *

 

 

It’s great, the flight across seas. There’s something about the water that fascinates and horrifies him in some deep way that he doesn’t want to analyze. Probably torture related, slightly suicidal, if he believes the shrink he saw only once. Pepper had made a big deal about it, and he’d lied to her for months afterwards, telling her he went every week.That was probably not healthy. 

 

He shrugs it all off as he hits land, snorting at the flashes of cameras as he flies past the Eiffel Tower. Hell, even the _French_ liked him, he really was amazing. 

 

“Estimated arrival: 3 minutes, sir.”

 

“Great, plenty of time to pick my opening song. I was thinking paint it black, because the irony is always good, but maybe something more flashy. I hear the Cap-tan-O-Merica is there, got to make a good first impression.”

 

“Ah yes,” JARVIS drawls, “because that is why you are here.”

 

“Don’t get smart with me. Give me something good, blast it through whatever they got flying around there. SHIELD’s got a bird in the air, I assume. Get on that.”

 

“1 minute, sir.”

 

Tony grins, enjoying the countdown to an awesome save-the-day kind of arrival. Plus, he gets to blast the ears off that cave man down there fighting some glowly-thing-throwing guy. 

 

_I got my gun at the ready gonna fire at will_

 

Tony swoops in and shoots in time with the song, because he’s classy like that. 

 

_Cause I shoot to thrill and I'm ready to kill_

Oh yeah, _that_ was perfect. 

 

He lands with a grin that no one can see, and almost every weapon is aimed at the alien god who’s on his back looking irritated. Tony nearly laughs at the way his cheeks flush as he sits up with his hands rising into the air. 

 

“Make a move, Reindeer Games,” he says, and wait, wait, wait, _flush_?

 

 

Loki’s horny helmet is… not gray.

Loki’s clothes are… not black.

Loki’s glow-stick thing is not white. 

 

And it clicks. 

 

“Oh holy mother of fuck,” Tony hisses, “I hate you so much more, now.”

 

 


	2. Black and Blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone always talks about the beauty.
> 
> No one ever tells you about how much pain that comes with it.

 

No one told him it was going to be like this. Everyone always talks about the _beauty_ of it all, not the pain or the confusion. Then again, Tony avoided all the seminars, the group meetings, the government issued ‘How to Deal with Soul Mates’ week long class. It was with good reason, of course, seeing as he had Pepper. He was happy with Pepper. He didn’t need or _want_ a soul mate. He didn’t want _any_  of it, but now, there he is. His soul mate. 

 

_And there’s the mind-fuck that comes with it._

 

He just can’t stop his eyes from tearing up. It’s probably the overload of colors he’s being forced to take in right now, or maybe the fact that there’s so _many_ of them and there’s only so much information his brain can handle. But deep down, Tony knows it’s sheer awe that’s drawing the tears forth. So he keeps his head down, and lets his eyes do what they want.

 

The lights lining the floor of the quintet aren’t just white, they have a tint to them. All the lights have tints to them, and the buttons on the dash? Don’t even get him started. He needs more time to take it all in, to process. Sadly, he doesn’t have time. 

 

“We’re taking him back to SHIELD.”

 

Tony just nods, not trusting his stomach enough to open his mouth. This is way worse than how Happy described it. 

 

_I’m going to give him a good punch when I get home_ , he thinks, squeezing eyes closed. He begins to wonder what Pepper’s hair looks like. He wonders what _his_ hair look like. He wonders what—

 

“What have you _done_ to me?” comes a snarl from a cross the jet.

 

Oh yeah, there’s _that_ problem, too. His soul mate is a mass-murdering, alien-viking, tantrum-throwing prissy boy with raccoon eyes and a sneer that could wipe a small country off the map.

Who also, to top it all off, was about to be locked up for probably ever and Tony doubted he could get visitation rights, if he actually wanted any.

 

“You, with the armor… what have you done?”

 

Tony looks up and gives the guy a good sneer in return.

 

 “Loki, no one cares about your feelings, so why don’t you go back to surprising them like you obviously have since forever?”

 

The god hisses at him. Oh yes, the mass-murdering, alien-viking, tantrum-throwing prissy boy _hisses_. Wonderful.

 

“Stark, don’t taunt the prisoner.”

 

Tony peels his eyes away from the creep—his _soul mate_ —to glare up at the good old Captain and nearly has a seizure. The man’s suit as an assault on the eyes and to anyone with some remote sense of design. 

 

But, well, thanks to that, the first color Tony can confidently name is red. 

 

_Red White and Blue._ He knows the colors of their nation’s flag—there’s too many songs about it—and _everyone_ knows damn well what the Great American Hero wears all over his well-toned body. Blue must be the darker one, because white is white, and Tony’s got red categorized. 

 

Now he knows three colors. Hooray.

 

“What?” The Captain grunts, looking down at his uniform with a frown. “I didn’t choose it, Agent Coulson—“

 

“I really don’t care what Agent said, just… go over there or something, you’re giving me a headache.”

 

Roger’s huffed something that sounded like, “rude,” when he turned away, and Tony could care less about hurting the Fossil’s feelings. He had pent-up angst he was more than willing to unleash on the man.

 

Natasha starts chatting with the Captain about the weather, which has been steadily getting worse since they took off, which leaves the Great Problem to talk to. Or ignore. 

 

“What did you _do_?” Loki growls again, leaning forward as far as he can to meet Tony’s gaze. He had been pretty nonchalant at first, until they got out of the dark and entered the jet. Tony has a feeling it was the colored buttons that caught his attention. Because, obviously, Tony wasn’t the only one getting a color-overload right now. 

 

“Don’t you guys have _this_ up there in space?” Tony mutters. Trying to keep from being overheard in such a small space was near impossible, but there was no way he was moving to sit next to that asshole. Besides, the turbulence was working wonders on his already-present nausea.  

 

“What _is_ this?”

 

“Oh no. No. I’m not going to be the one to explain this. I already want to—“ _jump out of this jet_ , he was going to say. But a loud roar of thunder drowns him out before he can finish. 

 

Loki shifts in his seat, eyes darting around with a hint of fear. Rogers says something about it, but Tony’s too busy trying to figure out what color Loki’s eyes are and then the damn doors blow open.

 

_Red cape._

 

_Red cape is stealing your soulmate, Tony._

 

“Shit.”

 

* * *

 

_Red_

_White_

_Blue_

 

 

* * *

 

 

By the time they stop hitting each other—and Loki’s loving it, Tony can tell—Tony’s headache has now vamped up to Dealing With Government Officials Brand Migraine © and no amount of Tylenol will fix it. He does his best to ignore Thor’s pouts, Rodger’s glares, and Natasha’s‘this is me not commenting on your manhoods and what just happened back there’ face. 

 

Loki stares at him in the most obvious manner for the rest of the trip, which either means the guy’s actually interested in him—which, there’s no reason he _shouldn’t_ be because, come on, Tony looks good in his suit—or Loki, apparently brother of Thor, was trying to start shit. Tony was going to go with option two, and maybe lay down for a while when he got a chance.

 

Of course, laying down is not an option, since there’s hacking software to be installed, but at least Tony gets to wave goodbye to the maniac when the guards take him off to wherever. He chooses to ignore the twinge in his chest when Loki gets pulled out of sight. It’s probably one more thing he would have learned about in all those seminars. 

 

“Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?” Rogers is asking, and Tony doesn’t bother answering because the genius of _that_ field is standing right there. Bruce answers eloquently, but a little bit like a nervous elf. Which is fine, Tony’s a huge fan, and he tells him that before he realizes that he _does_ know another color. He read it in the file just last night. 

The Hulk = green.

 

Enormous _Green_ Rage Monster. 

 

_Then Loki’s eyes must be some variation of green, because that’s the closest color I’ve seen so far. Or maybe they’re blue? It was hard to tell with all the ignoring or fighting going on._

 

Tony shakes those thoughts out of his head, only to find himself rolling his _eyes_ right out of this head at the gramps in the room understanding a reference from the 1930’s. 

 

“If we’re done being socially awkward here, how about we get to work on finding this thing before more people die? Sound good?” he asks, not waiting for a reply. “Sounds good. You and me, Banner, let’s go make sweet, sweet science.”

 

They’re three decks down before Banner asks him, “How did you know?”

 

Tony knows exactly what he’s asking and decides to divert the conversation as quickly as possible. Jesus, he needs some aspirin.

 

“You know,” he begins, all casual and carefully not looking at the damn computer screens. _Those_ were blue, and bright, and killing him. “I've got a cluster of shrapnel, trying every second to crawl their way into my heart.

 

Tony can tell by the silence that Banner is looking at him, so he forces himself to meet those eyes with all the not-in-pain thoughts as he can manage. The doctor doesn’t fall for it. 

 

“What’s going on?”

 

“You mean besides the alien god attacking people, Fury being all secretive—no surprise there—and that two-for-one sale at Macy’s?”

 

“I mean with you, you’ve been squinting and weaving around since you arrived. I’ve got something for airsickness,“ He pauses and amends, “Well, it’s actually for seasickness since I thought this was a ship ship not an air-ship, but it should help.”

 

Tony shrugs it off, looking down at the tablet he brought with him. Go figure, the user face is all blue. Did he do that intentionally? He can’t remember making any specifications for color when he designed the damn things. He doesn’t even like blue that much, it reminds him of Captain Tight Pants, which then leads to thoughts of Howard and fuck that. Tony _hates_ blue. 

 

 “No sea, land, or air sickness, doc. Sickness of the heart, maybe,” he says, making like he’s busy, even though everything’s still loading and there’s literally nothing interesting happening on screen. 

 

“You were saying… about the shrapnel? Is it creating problems right now?”

 

Tony looks up and lets out a short laugh. “Oh, no, no. I’m good,” he says cheerfully, tapping the circle of— _fucking blue light, goddammit—_ in his chest. “This stops it. This little hunk of metal right here. It's part of me now, not just armor. It's a... terrible privilege.”

 

“And you can control it?”

 

Tilting his head, Tony considers the question. Out of all the things in his life that were out of control right now, the arc reactor was not one of them. For once. 

 

“I learned how. I had some ups and downs there, but as the rooster says, ‘Sometimes ups outnumber the downs.’”

 

Bruce’s concerned face crumples into bemusement. “And you rolled your eyes are Fury’s obscure references?”

 

“I rolled my eyes at Captain America’s excitement over said obscure reference.”

 

Bruce snorts and returns his focus back to the screen in front of him. After a few minutes, Tony gives up on staring at the loading bar and studies the doctor instead. 

 

Bruce waits a solid minute before asking, “Can I help you?” without looking away from his work. 

 

“I've read all about your accident. That much gamma exposure should have killed you.”

 

The man looks past the numbers on his screen, eye sharp and unforgiving. 

 

“So you're saying that the Hulk... the other guy... _saved_ my life?” He muses dryly. “That's nice. It's a nice sentiment. Save it for what?”

 

“I guess we'll find out,” Tony replies with a shrug.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

_Red_

_White_

_Blue_

**_Green_ **

 

* * *

 

 

 

Tony finds the weapons. 

 

Bruce is more angry about the holding cell they’ve got Loki in—you know, the one built for Hulk, not the skinny guy currently residing in it. 

Rogers is angry at _everyone._ Mostly Tony and Fury, go figure. 

Thor’s not really angry. But then, Tony can’t tell, really. The guy’s a mass of muscle and has every few facial expressions outside of _scowl_ and _smile_. 

Natasha is angry at everyone. Maybe. Again with those facial expressions, or lack thereof.   
  
Fury is… his usual charming self.

 

Tony swears to god he can hear someone laughing, which is really weird, since no one is.

 

Then something explodes. 

 

* * *

 

 

Tony’s headache gets worse the longer this goes on. Starting the engine again? Sure thing, let me just get pummeled by large flaps of metal traveling at speeds unsafe to fucking be _pummeled_ by. 

 

They’ve got no time to check themselves over. There’s people on the ship and something—probably Hulk—is roaring so loudly it’s shaking the entire craft. Captain’s run off somewhere, Thor’s AWOL, and Tony’s going to the one place he knows he really shouldn’t go. He _needs_ to go.

 

 Along the way, he finds more men in black gear, running around shooting everyone in SHIELD uniforms. Tony’s forced to fight his way through the best he can with a failing suit and very little room to maneuver. He’s not used to this kind of close-combat, especially not in the suit, so it takes him nearly ten minutes to reach the doors leading to the holding cell.

 

“Loki!” he calls out, cutting his way through the thick metal of the doors, and he’s there just in time. 

 

To see Coulson fall to the floor. 

 

He wants to say something, but everything’s wound down to molasses speed. Loki’s turning to look at him, surprised, and Coulson’s bleeding. There’s blood by his mouth and he’s just smiling and lifting up a huge gun. Tony actually feels it when Loki’s shot in the back, like a bruise forming under the skin. 

 

Fucking soul mates.

 

His one and only mass-murdering, alien-viking, tantrum-throwing prissy boy. Who just stabbed Coulson. Who grabs Tony from behind and starts dragging him—kicking and snarling—from the room with a highly unnatural amount of strength. The same strength that tears apart what’s left of Tony’s suit the second they get on a jet, and binds him with some kind of magical chains for the rest of the journey.  

 

He knows he should care more about himself and his current situation. He should have fought back harder, at least. But all he can think about is that stain expanding across Coulson’s chest.

 

And that blood is red. 

 

* * *

 

 

Everyone always says that people come out of a fight ‘black and blue’, which Tony doesn’t get because before today, people came out of fights black and gray. Right now, he thinking it’s more of a reddish hue. Nice, dark, red-colored hand prints around his wrists. Coupled with the almost blue colored bruise crawling up his side from where the asshole ended up pinching him between the metal plates of his own suit. He didn’t stop pulling on it until Tony ended up screaming in pain, and even then, he still tried pulling it another way before magic-ing it off of Tony’s body. 

 

Not that he expected anything less from the guy setting up the portal device on his own damn roof. 

 

“I hate you.”

 

“No, no. Higher, you need to calibrate the shield to form a bubble around it, not this thin coating you have here.”

 

“I hate you more than Steve Rogers,” Tony continues as though Loki’s listening. 

 

“Must I do everything myself?” the god sighs, waving the scientist away from the machine. “Honestly, I give you meaning, I allow you to gaze into the truth which the Tesseract provides, and you cannot even give me a decent shield?”

 

“I hate you more than Twinkies.”

 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry… You showed me such—“

 

“Your apologies are worthless. Go… stand over there,” Loki orders, directing him to the side before fussing over something on a tablet. When nothing changes, he curses under his breath, and glares at the machine in silence. 

 

Tony throws out a, “I hate you more than my father,” and jerks in surprise when _that_ makes the god turn around. 

 

“I am sure that is true,” Loki agrees, stalking across the roof to stand over Tony’s hunched form. “You, be less useless and fix the shield for me.”

 

“Uuuuh, no? No, I don’t think i’ll help you _take over my own planet._ ”

 

Loki leans in close, his breath oddly cold against Tony’s face. “Help me now, or I shall _make_ you help me.”

 

“Go ahead and try,” Tony insists, flashing his best ‘I dare you’ grin. “If you have the time. Aren’t you on a tight schedule here? Got things to ruin, people to kill. Don’t want to keep them waiting, the suspense might kill them before you can. Can’t have that now, can we?”

 

There’s a shimmer in the air around Loki’s hand, that scepter thing making its second appearance while Loki’s smirk grows smug. Because clearly he knows something Tony’ doesn’t, and that puts him in a good mood. 

 

“Oh, it won’t take but a moment of my time,” he assures Tony, and taps him on the chest with the thing. There’s a great power-up sound, and Tony’s sweating bullets here trying to focus hard on himself— _don’t loose yourself and become a mindless slave._ Then _nothing_ at _all_ happens, and in sheer relief, Tony lets out a bark of laughter. 

 

“That’s your great plan? Poking me with a stick? Oh _wow_ ,” he giggles, leaning back to take it all in. Loki’s child-like surprise as he stares at the scepter like it should have one of those little signs that say ‘BANG!’ popping out of it, the scientist standing behind Loki looking as shocked as he was, and of course, the device with a failing shield behind him.

It was just too good.

 

Too good to last and man, if Loki’s suit-removing was bad, his punches were ten times worse. Tony was almost sure that his eye has just been knocked out of his head and I’d like that back, thank you very much. It’s too swollen up, now, to really get a good look at Loki, but he swears he sees a flash of red in those eyes as he pulls Tony to his feet and drags him towards the device. 

 

“There are well over 200 ways to make you do what I want,” Loki says conversationally, throwing Tony down into the roof-gravel roughly. “But seeing as I require information from you, still, I am limited to only 180 of them. The rest would end with you dead far too quickly for my liking.”

 

“Wha… what do you want from me?” Tony asks, rising to his knees with a wince. More bruising, opens cuts, dirt and probably pigeon poop already spreading infection in every one of them. 

 

“Fix. The. Shield.”

 

“I’ll need the tablet to do that.”

 

Loki grabs the thing from where he tossed it away before, and hands it over. Tony nods, accepting it without his usual argument—he would pick his battles—and sits back on his feet. It wasn’t anything too complicated, but it would take a few minutes to see results and maybe, just maybe, he could use those few minutes to come up with a plan.

 

“I’ll see what I can do,” he murmurs, more to himself than anyone else. 

 

“See to it that you do, and quickly. You,” Loki addresses the scientist with a flick of the wrist. “Come here and watch him. If he does anything extraordinarily different than what you were doing before, step on his hands.”

 

“Of course, of course,” the man says, ducking his head with a cheerful smile as he steps up behind Tony. Loki leaves them to go skulk around Tony’s deck and pose with his scepter. Now was the perfect opportunity to strike, or, well, escape first and then strike. He has a suit right down stairs, he just needs to get to it.

 

_If I strike out to my left, I can make it over the edge there and drop to the second landing thing over there. But there’s a 87% chance that Loki will turn around and see me, soooo, I can go right. The roof-access should be around there somewhere, and since this moron got up here somehow, it’s probably unlocked. If I start now, I have at least 3 minutes before Loki realizes i’m gone and another 4 for him to catch up with me inside. Not bad. I’ll take it._

 

_Now I just need to knock this guy on his ass._

 

 

 “—You really should see what you’re missing. The Tesseract shows you so much about this world—this _universe_ —that you never knew existed.”

 

Tony scoffed, “Yeah, no, I don’t need to drink the Kool-Aid to see how fucking insane you all are. Thanks.”

 

The guy replies, “Madness is the purest form of intelligence,” and that’s enough of _that_. 

 

Tony drops the tablet, already twisting around to catch the scientist in the jaw with a solid left-hook, when said scientist kicks him in the chest. He has no idea how such a pudgy old man moves that quickly, but before Tony can even catch his breath, the bastard does exactly what Loki told him to do. He _steps_ on him. 

 

“Ghhyyaaah! Jesus—stop!” Tony screams, clawing at the man’s ankle with his free hand. 

 

“I’m sorry,” the man babbles, digging his heel in further. “I’m sorry, i’m sorry. I have to. I’m sorry.”

 

Tony bites back the ocean of curses he wants to belt out right now, and forces himself to breath. It’s kind of hard to, after a kick like that, and there will defiantly be some serious bruising around the Arc Reactor. But more importantly, this needs to stop, because Tony’s pretty sure something’s going to break any second now. 

 

“O-okay… I get it. I get it, get off. I can’t fix the damn thing if my hand’s broken.”

 

 

“Oh… right. Will you fix it then?” 

 

“Fucking… get off my hand and I will,” Tony snaps.

 

The man removes his foot and squints down at him curiously, not at all like someone who was just spouting apologies a moment ago. Tony sits up, refusing to meet his eye and clutching his hand to his chest in a fruitless attempt at feeling better. Or safer.

 

“That’s already going purple,” He hears. 

 

Tony ignores him and picks the tablet back up with his good hand, resting it in his lap so he can work. 

 

“Your eye, it’s all bruised and almost swollen shut. You should have let him show you the truth.”

 

_Bruises are purple._

 

“I told you,” Tony mutters, turning the shield into the perfect bubble with two key-strokes. “I’m not drinking the Koolaid and joining the cult of Loki.”

 

 

“You are missing something beautiful,” he’s assured. 

 

“Yeah, that’s what they _all_ say.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

_Red_

_White_

_Blue_

_Green_

**_Purple_ **

 


	3. We Could Kill Each Other

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything's a big, colorful mess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [unedited]

 

 

 

 

The sound of a hole being ripped between two places in the universe is as chilling as one of those ‘I’ve just lost someone I love’ screams, and Tony would know, he’s heard plenty of those over the years. It sounds like a groan, like the universe is really unhappy about assholes opening up wounds in it, or maybe it hurts. Maybe that’s the universe expressing pain. 

 

_Okay, Tony, you’re losing it. The universe isn’t sentient._

 

Oh, but the best thing about being kidnapped and left on your own roof, is that Tony gets front row seats to the show. Aliens are flying past him, and it would be _so_ nice if he had his suit, or could call his suit, or could actually get up from the sharp bits of gravel digging into all his bruises. Two more attempts at escape, and Tony’s decided this scientist has learned Judo, or at least some kick boxing. That, or he’s actually in worse shape than he thinks. 

 

“Oh,” the man murmurs, sounding upset. The poor thing. 

 

“‘Oh’ _what_?” Tony snaps from his position under one of his damn shoes. His hand was officially crushed at this point, and he just had to wonder if that blue shit did a lot more than enlighten. 

 

“I see Thor—it’s Thor!”

 

Tony furrows his brow, and turns his head to see what the idiot is looking at. Of course, being on the ground, he can’t see what scientist man is looking at. Presumedly, it’s Thor. 

 

“Wait, you know Thor? Oh, let me guess, Loki divulged all his pity-party secrets to you, and then braided your hair.” He pauses, eyeing the man’s head. “Scratch that, you braided his. You don’t have enough for pigtails.” 

 

“Thor was… my friend. He came to Jane and I one day. We hit him with our van. Twice.”

 

“That’s nice. So, you decided to betray your friend by hooking up with his adopted broth—oh shit, wow, okay. Looks like the team’s all here.” And he grins, because they may have just met, and he has no idea what happened on the carrier after he was forcibly removed, but they were still his best luck of getting the hell away from here and into a suit. Hopefully, unless they had no that he was up here, which was probable. 

 

“I should warn Loki,” the man remarks, and suddenly Tony’s hand is free, free, free. 

 

“You do that… i’ll just stay here.”

 

The scientist looks down at him, realizing too late that he’s already a few steps away from Tony. His expression of complete shock is highly amusing to punch with his one good hand, and the guy goes down a lot easier than Tony expected. Not that he doesn’t make sure with one more kick. You know, you can’t be too careful. 

 

The tower shakes beneath him, but he’s already off running for the door that will take him to freedom and hopefully a suit, and—it _really_ shouldn’t be shaking like that. 

 

“STOP BLOWING HOLES IN MY TOWER!” he screams as he jumps down to the next landing. No one answers, which ins’t a surprise really, and he continues downward without a problem. At the penthouse suite, Tony takes a moment to catch his breath, and ready himself for another possible assault. The problem with the suite, is that Loki was somewhere out on the balcony, and where Tony needs to be has a _lot_ of windows. 

 

_The door is gray._

 

Tony scowls, and makes a mental note to repaint all the doors with something more exciting. Maybe red. 

 

_Coulson’s blood._

 

Maybe not red. 

 

Anyway, now is not a good time to start redesigning his interiors. Tony takes his chance, and slinks through the door like one of those cartoon cat burglars. He’s probably doing a shit poor job with this whole sneaking thing, but he’s never really _had_ to sneak before. The Ironman isn’t exactly made for stealth operations, more like ‘burst in with some sweet tunes and blow things up’ kind of operations. 

 

He pauses in the middle of the hall, and curses under his breath. Why couldn’t he just _think_?

 

“ _JARVIS_?” 

 

“Sir, there are two men fighting on the balcony—“

 

“ _I know_ ,” he interrupts in a harsh whisper. “Well, okay, I didn’t know that exactly, but I have more important things to worry about. Where are my bracelets?” 

 

“But sir, the diagnostics were never complete, you—“

 

“Need them right _now_ , JARVIS. As you said, there’s people fighting on my balcony—oh, and an entire alien army raining from the sky.” He sneaks forward a little more, and peers around the corner. “You said two ‘men’, those are _not_ two men.” 

 

They weren’t exactly fighting, either. Hulk is doing something with what looks a little bit like the leather-clad, mass-murdering, alien-viking, tantrum-throwing prissy boy who ruined his life. He’s created a great big hole in the floor with the self-proclaimed god, which explains some of the tower shaking that’s been going on. Hopefully that’s the limit to the damages it’s sustained, but Tony wasn’t holding his breath. The portal to alien party-line was open right upstairs. 

 

Apparently done tossing Loki around like a rag doll, Hulk huffs, mutters something under his breath, and stalks off to—presumably—go smash other things. Now is probably Tony’s best chance to haul ass up there and grab the bracelets. He had been in the middle of fixing a drink the last time he was toying with the idea of testing them—not that he ever _did_ test them—so, by following that logic, they should still be there. The Loki-shaped hole wasn’t showing any movement. It was now or never. 

 

He tosses stealth to the wind, and bolts across the room, taking the stairs two at a time until he’s there. And _there_ they are, right where he left them. 

 

 

“… Hnnghh …” 

 

Tony freezes, looking up from his useless, purple hand, and pathetic attempts at attaching the bracelet one-handed. He waits, and a second later, another whimpering, raspy sound fills the air. It seems to be coming from the Loki hole, so he ignores it. Fuck his soul-mate, he can cry all he wants. 

 

Except that he can’t, because either the bruising around the arc reactor is really starting to ache, or those instincts that hit him back on the carrier was back in full force. Something is telling him to fix his soul-mate, to go to him right now— _go go go_! 

 

“Shit…” Tony looks back down at his hands, his stupid, useless hands that failed to get either of the bracelets on. One wrist is too swollen, the other one is impossible to get on with a broken hand. He’s screwed, unless he runs down only a million more stairs to get a suit from the lab. 

 

“… nnsshh …”

 

“Yeah, yeah, shut up,” Tony hisses, tossing the metal circlet down. Hopeless anger was useless, but welling up inside of him anyway. Everything had gone to shit the second he looked into those—whatever color eyes Loki had—and now… and… 

 

Scrubbing his good hand over his face, Tony lets out a breath, gathers up whatever shattered pieces of his determination he has left, and starts slinking his way towards the great big hole that was whining at him. 

 

 

The first thing Loki does is blink up at him, and whisper, “Amber…” 

 

Tony has no idea who or what he’s talking about, and he’s not sure he really cares. So, he just settles down on the cracked tile beside the god, tucks his abused hands into his lap, and leans over him. 

 

“Sorry, i’m not the $2 hooker you ordered, she’s otherwise occupied with running for her life right now. Thanks to you, I might add.” 

 

“Your eyes,” Loki replies, not actually being helpful. “It must be… I heard… stories of amber on Midgard. They always said it was… was like light, golden. I know golden.” 

 

“All I know is it’s usually full of really old bugs, so… Are you dying? Can we call this whole attack thing off now?” Tony asks, well aware that his adrenaline was starting to wear off, and the pain would going to hit him hard any minute now. “Should I smother you with my shirt?” 

 

Loki lets out a noise that might be called a laugh, and reaches up a shaky hand to toy with the metal circlet thing embedded in his chest plate. Even dinged up and blood-stained, it was a pretty color, whatever it was.

 

“Gold… Thor told me I wore gold and green, once.” 

 

“Great for you, and nice way to avoid all of my questions.” 

 

“I would rather not be smothered, if it’s all the same to you.”

 

“Well, I’d rather not have my world attacked, if it’s all the same to _you_.”

 

“Is that a threat?”

 

“It’s a sentiment.”

 

Loki wrinkles his nose at that, and lets his hand drop away from his chest. He seems a lot more subdued, all sprawled out in his hole there, bleeding on Tony’s floor. Tony lets his eyes roam over the god’s body—because hey, the guy’s his soul-mate, after all—and listens to the explosions outside. 

 

“I will not call off the attack,” Loki states out of no where, and he sounds dead serious, but he’s also not meeting Tony’s eyes. Serious, but unsure. Maybe. 

 

“Okay, well, I guess I should probably get going then, since you’re being boring and I have a world to save.” 

 

Loki’s eyes snap to him as soon as he moves to stand up, and for one scary moment, Tony’s sure the guy’s going to rise up and stop him. But he doesn’t he simply stares and stares with those definitely green eyes. 

 

“What did you do to me?” he asks one more time. 

 

Tony laughs bitterly, and replies, “I met you.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Red

 

White

 

Blue

 

Green

 

Purple

 

**Gold or ‘Amber’ (unsure)**

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

He suffocates. 

 

 

It’s not like he hasn’t had the pleasure of suffocating before, but this time it’s so much bigger than him, so much bigger than a cave and a bucket of water. For the first time since its invention, his suit feels like a tin can. Just scraps of metal between him and that void. JARVIS dies in his ear, and he’s really, really alone now. Suffocating alone. 

 

_Whatever color that is_ , he thinks, eyes fluttering closed as the gigantic alien ship explodes.

 

 

_It’s beautiful._

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Standing there with repulser aimed at Loki—his soul-mate—the team around him, all dirty and tired and _done_ , should feel more rewarding. But it doesn’t. It doesn’t even feel like an end to something, not with the way Loki’s eyes fasten on him and his lips twitch into a smirk. Tony almost loses it, almost bursts out laughing right then and there because he nearly died, and this asshole really fucked him up, and it’s not the first time Tony’s ever been hurt by someone he’s _expected_ to love. But his new Boy Band buddies would probably be really concerned if he did that—as they probably should be—so he just smiles back at Loki, and watches Thor yank his brother up off the floor. 

 

It is over, this part anyway. The battle, the locking of the villain up, the pats on the back, the bandages and— _oh yes, Vicodin_. Only slightly high, he invites them out to shawarma, and surprisingly everyone agrees. As it turns out, shawarma is delicious, and doesn’t matter if everyone’s too exhausted—read: _slightly_ _high on pain killers_ —to talk, they’re here, they’re alive. That’s all that matters. 

 

Except, once he’s done chewing and swallowing, he realizes that all he has is a ruined home to go back to, and that sucks. Not to mention the fact that here’s still police and firemen still in the streets, Pepper hasn’t even landed yet, Fury probably wants to debrief them, and he really, really needs to talk to someone about this color thing. 

 

Rhodey. Yeah, he could call Rhodey. He would listen without freaking out, and maybe have some advice about having a soul-mate who was an alien god—oh, and also a mass murderer.

 

“This has been nice,” Tony says, standing up and tossing his napkin down. “But I have to be somewhere. See you guys whenever Fury wrangles us up again.”

 

“It’s a mess out there, where you going to go, man?” Clint asks, being one of the only ones awake enough to even notice that Tony’s leaving. Unfortunately, Tony’s only met him about an hour ago, after he had popped a few pain killers. He vaguely remembers Romanoff mentioning something about mind control and Loki. 

 

“I need to meet someone,” Tony answers over his shoulder, waving goodbye to anyone who was paying attention. A chorus of ungraceful grunts rise up behind him, and he makes it outside before a loud voice calls to him awkwardly. 

 

 

“Man… of Iron?” 

 

Tony snorts and turns to find Thor stepping right up into his personal space. “Uh, no. Call me Tony. We’ve fought aliens together, what better bonding experience could one ask for?”

 

Thor’s expression turns constipated for a moment, before he gives Tony a solum nod and steps even closer to him. Of course, he’s fucking huge, and Tony has to crane his head back just to look up at his chin. 

 

“My brother said something strange to me before he was taken away.”

 

_Oh, great._

 

“And you’re telling me this… why?” 

 

Thor shifts from one foot to the other, as if someone as massive and god-like as him could _actually_ get awkward. “He was—is not all in his right mind, but he spoke of something he should not know, no matter what he claims the Tesseract persuaded him to do.”

 

_Oh, greeeaaaaaat._

 

“Wait, he’s saying the blue-cube made him do it?” Tony scoffed and shook his head. “Sure, that’s believable.”

 

“I believe it may have had some power over him, but no, not all,” Thor agrees, getting that displeased look again. “As I said, he is speaking in riddles and nonsense. But… he spoke of something… impossible.” 

 

_Oh, fucking wonderful._

 

“He said that amber was a beautiful color.”

 

Tony opens his mouth for one of his easy easy quips or otherwise ingenious replies, and finds nothing there. He’s just so tired, and a _littletinybit_ high. That’s got to be it. 

 

“I—uh—okay,” he manages, and realizes too late that he avoided eye-contact the second Thor mentioned it. Classic tell, good fucking job. “Why tell me, again?” 

 

“Because,” Thor explains, his voice dropping to a whisper, “I believe he has found his soul-bonded, and that person is _you_.”

 

“Why do you think it’s me?” Tony chokes out, forcing himself to meet Thor’s eye. He wasn’t even going to ask how Thor knew about the soul-mate thing—or soul-bond—when Loki had no idea what it was. Didn’t the skinny bastard mention something about Thor telling him about gold?

 

“When I arrived to the battle, Lady Widow told me of how my brother stole you away. And when I fought him, I expected Loki to present you as a distraction, to hold a knife to your throat and play games with your life.” 

 

Tony grumbles, “You’re not that far off,” under his breath, and tries to ignore the overwhelming panic seeping into his veins. This was _not_ how it was supposed to go.”

 

“But he did not,” Thor continues. “He hid you away, kept you away from the battle, and then he speaks of colors. This is not a coincidence.” 

 

“So you’re saying that he was protecting me by—what?—breaking my fucking hand? That’s touching, really, I feel treasured.” 

 

“Tony…” 

 

“It could be _anyone_ ,” he bursts out, his panic bleeding into desperation. “It could be Captain America for all we know.”

 

“But it is not, is it?” 

 

Tony opens and closes his mouth a few more times, and gives up. A long, shuddering breath drags its way out of his chest, and that gnawing, burning feeling lessens just a little. 

 

“Okay… okay, yeah, I think it’s me,” he says, flashing Thor a rueful smile. “You are so not the person I wanted to talk about this, but I guess I have not choice.” 

 

“It is the truth?” Thor questions, his face a mask of surprise and something that might have been pity. 

 

“Yeah, it’s true. I just…” he trails off, turning from Thor to look at the city behind him. What was left of the city, thanks to Loki. 

 

 

“…I have no idea what to do.”

 


End file.
